Sans Soul

By Kleinheider Posted on March 22, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Former Tennessean columnist Tim Chavez on the current editor’s thoughts on the health of Nashville’s last daily printed publication.

One of the saddest things in Silverman’s piece was his claim that his staff is the best in Tennessee. Not even close. It has lost too many good and talented journalists for that to be true, and that number does NOT include me. Columnists are a dime a dozen. How many names do you still recognize in the newspaper?

The best newspaper staff is the News-Sentinel in Knoxville. The best group of journalists in Tennessee are at NewsChannel 5 here in Nashville.

The bottom line to all of Silverman’s silliness to distract from the obvious is this: he did not quote any newspaper subscriber numbers. They are disastrous. GM execs are making the same contention about their company, while sales were down 53% in February. The American people are not stupid. Neither are Tennesseans. They buy with common sense. They can smell a phony a mile away.

A good newspaper with enough fight and staff to make a difference in people’s lives used to be something every community needed and every journalist wanted to work for.

Now, as Silverman writes, The Tennessean is viable because it makes a profit.

But, folks, it has no soul.

I am so blessed that I am no longer part of the walking dead.

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Tags: 1100 Broadway, Mark Silverman, newspapers, Tim Chavez  

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